If Iranian Banks Are Blocked, Is Russia Next? Germany Wants to Know

Swift has dealt a “harsh blow” to free trade by suspending Iranian banks from the financial messaging network that connects the world’s lenders, according to Europe’s largest mechanical engineering industry group.

“Swift is the lifeblood of international payments,” Thilo Brodtmann, executive director at Germany’s VDMA association, said in a statement. “Any restriction, however small, on the neutrality of this system is unacceptable. Today Iran, tomorrow Russia and then China?”